Kingston Comprehensive Plan Committee gathers public feedback

KINGSTON, N.Y. -- A public input session on developing a new land-use plan for Kingston drew more than 100 people to City Hall on Thursday.

Residents attending the event broke into work groups to hammer out planning issues.

Suggestions collected at the meeting are expected to be used by professional planners in developing the city's new Comprehensive Plan, the first for Kingston since the early 1960s.

The plan ultimately must be approved by the Common Council.

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"Comprehensive planning is a participatory process," said consultant Stuart Turner. "It requires that everyone in the community -- every interest group, every citizen -- have an opportunity to give the planners, planning committee, the city council and the Planning Board a guide to making decisions as time goes on."

"Our city has changed drastically (since the 1961 plan was approved)," said Common Council President James Noble. "What we want to do with this whole survey is formulate another blueprint.

"This (Thursday's gathering) is the public part," he said. "We're trying to gather all the data we possibly can and then make it into a plan. Hopefully, it will be the plan that everyone wants."

Mayor Shayne Gallo told those in attendance to "take into account that there are three different districts in Kingston which make up one great, beautiful city, with assets that need to be inventoried, and considered how we can develop those areas."

Particularly, Gallo said, the Stockade District in Uptown Kingston is historic in significance; and the Rondout Creek waterfront, Downtown, has a scenic promenade that passes behind numerous tourist destinations, including the new winter homeport of the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater.

Broadway, in Midtown section, hopefully will become a will be a digital business corridor, anchored by the Seven21 Media Center and the Ulster Performing Arts Center.

The city also is planning to move its police headquarters from Garraghan Drive, Downtown, to a vacant Bank of America building on Broadway in Midtown.

"What you have in Midtown is the potential for major revitalization," Gallo said. "We intend to undertake an ambitious effort to help with the infrastructure of the sidewalks and exterior facing of all those businesses there."

Editor's note: This story previously stated that Mayor Gallo said at the Thursday evening meeting that the city had acquired the former Bank of America building on Broadway in Midtown. Questioned by a Freeman reporter on Friday morning, Feb. 1, Gallo said he was actually uncertain about the status of the title, as he had yet to see any paperwork. (02-5-13 11:11 AM)